Work, work, work. I now miss the Antarctic coast. Now that we have all ourequipment, we have been working constantly, and it's not about to changebecause the amount of work we need to do is plain scary. I am here for lessthan two weeks and John and Colin are only staying a couple of days after Igo. In this last couple of days we have exchanged one of the generators,replaced the electronics and computer, redone all the wiring in the buildingand put together a part of the MASS. This last part was not as easy asfirstly thought. The MASS is essentially an indoor telescope than looksthrough a glass window of the AASTINO and measures profiles of atmosphericturbulence. All its parts are bolted to a big slab of aluminium, itselfattached to one of our fuel tanks for support. The problem is that inSydney, we designed it using the theorical size of the building. It wasmeant to fit inside one of the panel of the AASTINO. When we tried toinstall it, of course it didn't. There probably was a good minute of silencewhen we realized it. Then the magic word was pronounced by one of us: Anglegrinder!

This tool is Jon and my favorite because it is the one that can do the mostamount of damage and we didn't even get to use it last year. We made a quickassessment and it became clear that the MASS would fit if we took off theinsulating foam that makes most of the thickness of the AASTINO. Aftertrying to find other alternatives, we came to the conclusion that it wassurgery or an early return to Sydney. So we decided to give it a shot rightafter lunch. We thought it was better to act first and then explain it toJohn back in Sydney instead of the other way around. If it didn't work, wecould always say that it was the dog's fault.

After lunch we grabbed a few garbage bags from the station and used them toisolate the part of the AASTINO requiring surgery from the rest of thebuilding. It was obvious that it was going to be a messy job and that plentyof fiber glass dust would end up covering everything including our sensitiveequipment. Being the most agile with my fingers (or rather being thetallest.) I was given the task to perform the duty. Jon drew around thesection to be removed while I put on a mask and my goggles to protect mefrom the dust. After making the first whole, we realized that it would beeasier with a jig saw so I changed tools and carried on. Jon filmed theprocedure while Colin assisted with the vacuum cleaner, minimizing theamount of dust falling from the cavity. After 10 minutes of struggle,leveling and cleaning, the AASTINO had two pretty holes on either sides ofone of its panel. We reinstalled the MASS that was perfectly fitting intoits new section. Of course there is now a small section less isolated fromthe cold but since no wind can get in I don't think it will make adifference.